At Your Service – What Services Does a Website Designer Offer?

The time has come. You’re ready to bite the bullet on a brand spankin’ new website for your business. You’ve already ruled out doing one yourself. After all, you’re no designer – you call it a good day when you manage to coordinate your shirt and tie every morning. And you’ve heard a website firm can bring more to the table beyond design expertise… you’ve seen the elusive words “services” and “strategy” nestled among all the marketing speak of various firms you’ve looked into.

But…you’re not entirely sure exactly what all these things actually mean – or even what you need. You’re about to hire a designer to put a nice new face on your business, but you know a website needs to be more than just a pretty face – it’s got to have some smarts behind it. So it’s important to pick the right website designer who offers the right services for you. But where to start?

Allow us to offer up a few suggestions on what you want your design firm to do:

Will Synthesize Your Goals into a Functional Design

You may have a list of wants and needs for your new website, or you may not have any idea where to start. A good website designer will take your input, interpret that input, and know how best to put together a design that will accomplish your goals. You may have only a vague notion of what you want, or you may be convinced you need a certain feature. The designer’s job is to figure out what your objective is and provide the best options to reach that outcome, even if they might be different than what you were originally thinking.

Won’t Try to Oversell You

A good design firm will be candid with you about what you do and don’t need and won’t attempt to rope you into features and services that won’t be beneficial. By the same token, they will be up front with you if they feel omitting a key feature might be prevent you from reaching your objectives, even if that means spending a bit more. Reputable website designers will give you exactly what you need.

Will Make Sure Your Website Looks Great on All Platforms

These days it’s imperative that websites can adjust “automagically” so they are optimally viewed no matter what device or orientation being used. A solid website designer will be well-versed in responsive design and know just how to use coding voodoo to be sure your fabulous new website looks just as fabulous on a tablet as it does on a 27″ monitor.

Will Incorporate CMS into Your Design

When your website is finished and ready to go, you’re going to need a way to manage it. A good website designer will provide a user-friendly content management system that will allow you to update your site easily without having to get your hands dirty under the hood.

Will Help You Attract Visitors with SEO

It’s not enough to simply create a stunning new website. You’re going to want to make sure others can find it easily. Part of a great design is knowing how to sprinkle SEO magic throughout the website to make sure it has the best possible chance of attracting the right audience.

Will Provide Website Copy

Your new website is going to need some words to accompany the eye-catching design. Most website design firms offer copy writing as a service for those who have no time, interest or talent for wordsmithing.

Ongoing Support

Technology is great until it isn’t. Stuff happens. Certificates expire, coding inexplicably suffers a mental breakdown and sprays gobbledy-gook all over your contact page, you thought you were changing a background color to persimmon and instead accidentally everything turns black.

Once your website is up and running, you’ll want to keep it running. One of the most important services a website designer offers is reliable, responsive support. Whether technology gremlins attacked your website or you have a question on how to do something, a website design agency will always throw you a lifeline and get you back in business as quickly as possible.

These are just a few of the basic services a website design company will offer, and some offer even more, partnering with you on the design, implementation and maintenance of your website so you never have to go it alone.

About Scott Weiss

Scott Weiss is the founder of Somethumb, a creative services agency focused on web design and development. "Like" us on Facebook, "Follow" us on Twitter, "Plus-One" us on Google+, "Connect" with us on LinkedIn, and view our portfolio on Somethumb.com.